Sunday, March 18, 2007

The Season Tickets arrived in the mail on Friday night, and it was Christmas morning at the house. With the season so close it’s tangible, let’s take a quick Survivors’ Day (annually held on March 18th …you figure it out) trip around the bases.

Paul Hoynes dips into the “low payroll” barrel again for his Sunday contribution. He points out that the Royals are only $1M lower in total payroll than the Indians, omitting that the Royals are paying $11M to Mike Sweeney this year and will pay $7M to Gil Meche and $7.75M to Odalis Perez, neither of whom would crack the Indians’ current rotation.

When will Shapiro get credit for the contracts that the current Indians are playing under? The Indians are paying Sizemore $1M (15th highest on the team), and have him under club control until 2012 and somehow they are derided by the local media for having assembled young talent that isn’t drastically overpaid.

Very simply, it’s not how much money is spent; it is HOW the money is spent.

Just ask the Yankees and their World Series drought since 2000 while spending $978,129,386 (or an average of $163,021,564 annually) that they’ve spent in the 6 subsequent seasons if it’s a matter of dollars spent or wisdom in spending those dollars.

Finally, Andy Call gives a nice rundown of the Spring being enjoyed by Fausto Carmona, the Indians’ 5th starter for the first few weeks of the season.